y from the fanatical glare of Paul's eyes to look
about me.

There was poverty here no longer; no makeshift apparatus greeted my
eyes, but the finest of laboratory equipment. Paul read my thoughts.

"They have been liberal," he told me; "the Central Council has
financed my work--though I have kept my whereabouts a secret even from
them. But they would not wait. I told you in Paris, and you did not
believe. And now--now I have succeeded! the research is done!"

* * * * *

He half turned to pick up a flake of platinum no larger than one's
finger-nail; it was a weight that was used on a delicate balance.

"Matter is matter no longer," he said; "I have resolved it into
energy. I hold here in my hand power to destroy an army, or to drive a
fleet of ships. I, Paul, will build a new world. I will give to man a
surcease from labor; I will give him rest; I will do the work of the
world. My tritonite that can destroy can also create; it shall be used
for that alone. This is the end of war. Here is wealth; here is power;
I shall give it to mankind, and, under the rule of the Brotherhood, a
united world will arise and go forward to new growth, to a greater
civilization, to a building of a new heaven on earth."

He was pacing up and down the room. His hands were shaking; the
muscles of his face that twitched and trembled were moulded into deep
lines. I sat there and realized that within that room, directly before
my eyes, was the Dictator of the World. It was true--I could not doubt
it--Paul Straki of college days had made his dreams come true; his
research was ended. And this new "Paul" who held in those trembling
hands the destinies of mankind, at whose word kings and presidents
trembled, was utterly mad!

I tried to talk and tell him of the truth we knew was true. He would
have none of it; his dreams possessed him. In the bloody flag of this
new Russia he could see only the emblem of freedom; the men who
marched beneath that banner were his brothers, unwitting in the
destruction they wrought. It was all that they knew. But they fought
for the right. They would cease fighting now, and would join him in
the work of moulding a new race. And even their leaders, who had
sometimes opposed--were they not kind at heart? Had they not checked
the advance of an irresistible army to give him and his new weapon an
opportunity to open the eyes of the people? Theirs was no wish to
destroy; their hearts ach